In its recent quarterly earnings announcement, Sprint said it sold 1.4 million iPhones for the July quarter but almost lost 2 million subscribers as it shuttered the NexteliDen network in late June. As it did in the first quarter of 2013, Sprint saw strong smartphone sales but ended up losing a significant number of subscribers, which for the second quarter came close to 2 million customers according to AllThingsD.

The third largest U.S. cellular carrier saw revenue reach $7.2 billion, up 8% from the same period last year. The company posted an operating loss of $874 million, however, thanks to depreciation of $430 million and $623 million in non-cash charges related to the shutdown of the Nextel platform.

By the time the Nextel network shut down on June 30, the telecom was able to keep and transition more than 4 million subscribers to the Sprint platform, a 44% postpaid recapture rate. Smartphones accounted for roughly 86% of quarterly postpaid handset sales, including the approximately 1.4 million iPhones, 41% of which were sold to new customers.

Sprint also closed three major transactions during, including a $21.6 billion takeover bid from SoftBank and the acquisition of Clearwire and U.S. Cellular for spectrum assets and existing customers. We’ll have to see how these new transactions affect Sprint going forward.